Bruce Cameron 5/12/11

The Long, Long Passport Form

A loyal reader recently wrote to inform me that the federal government has some inefficiencies. I was shocked to hear it.

As proof, he attached a copy of ds5513, the proposed “long form” passport application that the U.S. Department of State may soon be deploying in order to reduce government paperwork by ensuring it never has to issue another passport.

On the new form, you must list all of your blood relatives, plus any step-parents, plus whether your birth was recorded (the “Donald Trump question”). Then you need to “list your mother’s residence one year before birth.”

Now, I don’t know what you were doing one year before you were born, but I sure wasn’t getting any mail addressed to me at my mom’s house. And I hope my kids don’t need passports because I moved a lot in my 20s and can’t help them out if they need to know their mother’s addresses. I can remember the towns, though, so if they go there and ask around they’ll probably find someone who remembers where the pregnant lady lived.

Listing where my mother was at the time of my birth is easier for me: She was right there in the hospital, giving birth. The Department of State wants to know if she received prenatal or postnatal care: Well, my dad was an obstetrician, so I’d assume so. But they also want to know the name of the doctor and the dates of the appointments. Because who can forget the dates of doctor appointments five decades ago, right?

What type of document did my mother use to enter the U.S. before my birth? She entered it the same way I did — were we supposed to bring documents? As I recall, we weren’t allowed to carry anything with us on the trip, not even a book to read.

Describe the circumstances of my birth: Well, my mom went into labor for several hours, and my dad drove her to the hospital, and then I came out, and the hospital staff sang the “hallelujah” chorus. That’s how I remember it, anyway.

List everyone who was present at my birth: I know for sure my mom was there. I showed up late, so I can’t say who might have left before I arrived.

Provide the details and location of any religious or institutional recording of my birth (baptism, circumcision, etc.).

OK, well, I think as far as circumcision goes, the “location” was probably the same as any other male baby’s. Do people really keep records of that kind of thing? Baptism, though, I can prove because I have seen a black-and-white photo of my parents, who appear to be about 12 years old, holding me, who appears to be even younger, at a church. I’m wearing what looks suspiciously like a white dress, so maybe it wasn’t a baptism, maybe it was my wedding. At any rate, on the back someone has written “baby baptism,” though the date isn’t noted because my parents didn’t know I’d ever need a passport.

The rest of the form is pretty simple: They want to know every single place I’ve ever lived, though there isn’t enough room to write “third door on the left from the top of the stairs at the Sigma Chi house.” They want to know every school I’ve ever attended (“Farmer in the Dell Pre-School, Nancy Schilling bit me”) and the addresses of same.

My mother wouldn’t let me drive myself to preschool, so I never bothered to learn the address. However, I’m pretty sure she wrote it down in the same place where she carefully recorded all of her prenatal appointments. She’s also really good at relating the circumstances of my birth, though every time she tells it she adds an hour or two to the time she was in labor. I think we’re up to 4 years, 3 months of contractions now.

At the bottom of the form there is, not kidding you here, a “Paperwork Reduction Act Statement.” It advises that the government estimates it will take an average of 45 minutes to respond to the form.

So the government isn’t so inefficient after all — the old form used to take an hour!

To write Bruce Cameron, visit his website at http://www.wbrucecameron.com. To find out more about Bruce Cameron and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at http://www.creators.com.

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